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In Reply to: RE: Can Passive Dedicated Line Conditioners Benefit Sonically from Proper Vibration Mgmt? posted by stehno on October 27, 2014 at 13:09:18
What did you do?
Follow Ups:
Bear in mind that I mfg'er $10k racks and this ain't them. This mini-rack was intended to be just a proof-of-concept made out of some spare hardware I had on hand.Just rememeber that form follows function and these are all spare parts I had laying around, ok?
What we have here are:
. 4 fabulously performing Foundation Research LC-10 passive, dedicated, bi-directional line condtioners.
. Small bars on top and bottom.
. Solid and hefty copper plates underneath each pair of LC's.
. Threaded rods with red springs covering the rods.
. My custom points to ensure the rack is making solid contact with the sub-flooring by piercing thru the carpeting and carpet pad.
. Some ratcheting straps for safety just to keep things from popping out when compressed.
. Some soft material between the upper bars and top plates just to preserve the LC's fine condition.
. Not pictured is a rather large cylindrical piece of stainless steel that weighs perhaps 35 lbs. for mass loading.
. Note that the bottom row of LC's are maybe 7 - 8 inches off the carpet to minimize potential electrostatic charge from the carpet.
. LC's are under about 300 lbs. of compressive force as they are sandwiched into the shelving system.It's not ideal but I was able to follow most of my preferred methcologies as I just slapped it together after hand-sawing the 3/8" threaded rods to length.
Between the 2 solid copper plates and the oversized stainless steel cyliner on top (not shown), the 4 LC's, and the misc. hardware keeping it all together, we're probably looking at about 80 lbs. total.
In the past 18 days I've received 6 fairly reasonable performance gains that I'm aware of.
I've been wanting to try this for years but never had the time. Am I surprised that I received any positve results? Well, yes and no. Nothing about proper vibration mgmt surprises me any more. Overall, I expected maybe half the gains I've received thus far.
But this proof-of-concept also tells me that if I incorporate the LC's into my regular rack and apply the exact same methodologies with the LC's as I do any other component, or perhaps design a custom performance-oriented mini rack dedicated just for the LC's, I just might be able to double or triple the gains recently received.
On a performance hope scale of 1 - 10 where a 10 is hitting it outta' the park, I'd probably list this effort's resulting performance at a 5.5 or 6. Not bad for 90 minutes worth of work and just enough spare parts to execute it somewhat poorly.
And now I need not wonder any longer.
Edits: 10/29/14 10/29/14
if you would ground those copper plates?
Decrease noise because of expanding the available ground plane?
Absolutely nothing?
Increase electrical noise due to placing a contaminated ground so close to your line conditioners?
As you can probably tell, I don't have an answer but it's an interesting thought experiment.
Nice work! Wish I had some 'spare parts' like that sitting around!
Yeah, the copper plates were a concern, but gotta' make due with what I got.So before this, I did try a little experiment of just raising the line conditioners about 4 inches off the ground for very minimally audible gains. Very slight improvement in clarity.
Now that bottom copper plate is about 6 inches off the ground. But then again the steel conduits (points) make contact with the carpet. Albeit the steel is not so good a conductor and the contact points are minimal.
Now my main rack is just inches from the carpet and the mono block amps are maybe 5 inches from the carpet.
The carpet itself is 7 seven year old anti-static type of berber if that means anything.
BTW, I recently posted in another DIY thread here my experimenting with some various highly rated speaker cable lifters.
For years, I'd been using some ceramic lifters that raise the cables maybe 6 inches off the ground. Recently tried some others that actually caused a reasonable gain. Surprisingly.
Knowing that wiring actually moves / vibrates when an electrical current is passed thru, I grabbed some old acoustic foam squares I had in storage.
Since my Audio Tekne speaker cables girth is narrower than a No. 2 pencil, I used a straight edge and box cutter knife to cut lengthy 1/2" deep slits lengthwise.
This picture shows the final product. The performance gains are about double the highly rated performance-oriented cable lifters I still need to put up for sale. (that's why I'm not telling the name brand).
Like many things, it took about 36/48 hours for the first gains to appear, and the gains occurred several more times over the next 4 or 5 days before finally settling. This was a very nice surprise improvement.
Edits: 10/30/14 10/30/14
I actually meant to say what could happen if you would connect the copper plates to an AC ground.
Sorry 'bout that!
Got it.
You're assuming of course that a typical household AC ground injects no noise of its own, right?
Stehno,I am aware that all components export their corruption and that is why I place analog components on one circuit and dirty digital components like my Mac Mini computer on another always using a separate AC wall outlet per component. In the case of the amplifier and Mac Mini I run a Teflon covered, silver-coated 18-gauge copper wire from the ground of the AC wall outlet to the brass water pipe fitting under respectively the kitchen sink and bathroom basin in order to bypass most domestic corruption through the miles of connected water pipes. (The Mac Mini earth being accessed through its microphone input.) The Shunyata Venom Digital Power Cable on the Mac Mini has a filter to stop it exporting its corruption which I considerably reduced by wrapping its internal power-supply in UltraPerm 80 (MuMetal). All this markedly reduces the noise floor so I suppose that unreliable AC quality, vibration, EMI distortion and component/ domestic corruption are the principal enemies of good sound. Lack of funds prevents me fighting the first but I can imagine that, when corrected, the music sounds solid without mis-timings.
Substituting nylon screws for stainless steel/ brass does have to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. For example, it resulted in a spacey, ungrounded sound when I replaced the 6-32 brass screw holding the AC wall outlet covers with nylon. One of my next tests will be to see whether running a twisted pair of silver-coated 18-gauge copper wires from the amplifier and Mac Mini AC wall outlet ground to the brass water pipe fittings will diminish EMI and lead to a further reduction in the noise floor.
DG
Edits: 11/01/14
Yes, many are not away that digital noise exists and even fewer are aware that it's bi-directional, meaning it goes back into the wall and supposedly even as far back as the service panel to affect other circuits, lines, components, etc.
I've done enough testing to verify it exists and is certainly worth curing.
My line conditioners are also bi-directional filtering which, in my case, doesn't matter since each component has its own line conditioner.
As for grounding, I've found the best is no ground.
I just don't have any experience with swapping screws. I don't think I'd have that kind of patience.
But I'm all for cryo-treating every electronic part and cable that is reaonsable for me to disassemble or purchase and install.
Stehno,
I used to float the ground on my amplifier which was way ahead of sharing the domestic ground corruption via the AC wall outlet ground. Then it occurred to me that the amplifier's performance while sitting in its own component corruption could hardly be at its best while, like a baby, it was sitting in soiled nappies. So I connected different wires from the AC wall outlet to the brass fitting of water pipes (under the kitchen sink and bathroom basin) that extend for miles and are uncorrupted by the noise from domestic accessories. Simple Teflon-covered solid-core copper wire was okay but Teflon-covered, stranded copper was decidedly better and Teflon-covered, silver-coated, stranded 18-gauge copper wire was best of all because the treble notes were then revealed fully for the first time. I started by disconnecting the house-ground at the AC wall outlets but found connecting both the house ground AND the Teflon-covered/ siver-coated/ stranded 18-gauge copper wire going to the brass-fitting of the water-pipe ground led to the best sound even though that defies logic. Now I am going to test a twisted pair of Teflon-covered, silver-coated, stranded 16-gauge copper wires to the water-pipe ground to hear whether more than doubling the surface area of the connection improves the sound.
If you heard the level of musical distortion caused by stainless-steel amplifier screws in proximity to the musical signal/electrical charge, I believe you would not be able to stop yourself from developing the patience to replace them all regardless of effort. The payoff in decreasing harshness/ fatigue and revealed musical detail is simply too rewarding.
Am sure that you are correct about the benefits of cryo-ing.
DG
Very cool- a new side business for ya?
Very nice! Kinda reminds me of Michael Greens racks from days gone by. Thanks for sharing your ideas.i
Thanks.
Michael Green? Yikes. Hopefully, even my humble little project constructed out of spare parts is far superior to his products. Certainly, my methodology is.
You are clamping between the top and bottom wood pieces, as Michael did with his clamp device. Now all you have to do is put marbles between the components top and bottom and you would have something! Just kidding. Thanks for posting.
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